Toothpick Bridge Project Due: October 26th

Task: To build a toothpick bridge Goal: To build as strong a toothpick bridge as you can; you want as great a mass per toothpick as possible. We will test the strength of the bridge by seeing how much weight it can hold and continue to add weight until the bridge breaks. Graded on: Following the guidelines and your effort into the construction of your bridge (rubric will be created together as a class) BRIDGE GUIDELINES: Construction of the Cardboard Surface: 1. Build the bridge on a piece of cardboard 15cm by 35cm (Figure 1). 2. Draw a river, 15cm wide, in the middle of the cardboard (Figure 1). 3. Draw one 5cm square at each end of the cardboard, 2.5cm from the river and 2.5cm from the edge (Figure 2). These squares are where the legs of your bridge will go. The only toothpicks that can touch the cardboard will be inside these squares. Toothpicks may be placed,

punched, or glued into the cardboard for the construction of the bridge. 4. Draw and cut out a 4cm square hole exactly in the center of the cardboard, in the river (Figure 2).
Construction of the Bridge: 5. Use only standard flat toothpicks. 6. Use a maximum of 500 toothpicks! (In other words, no more than 500 toothpicks allowed; that is the limit). Keep a running record of the total number of toothpicks used. Write that number on the bottom of your cardboard. 7. Use only white Elmers Glue. No glue gun or carpenters glue. Apply the glue sparingly and ONLY to join the toothpicks. 8. The bridge must be at least 5cm high. This distance is measured from the cardboard to where the deck of the bridge would be. A boat that is 5cm high must be able to travel the length of the river and at any part of the river (so do not have any part of the bridge hanging over the river less than 5 cm high). 9. The bridge must be at least 4cm wide. A truck that is 3.5cm wide must be able to travel the length of the road.

10. The bridge MUST have a hole at least 2cm by 2cm in the center of the bridge. This hole MUST line up with the 4cm square hole in the center of the cardboard. We are going to have a ruler holding the bucket of weights placed through these holes BRIDGE CONTEST RULES: 1. The bridge MUST be built according to the bridge building code. All bridges not built to code will be eliminated. 2. The bridge will be tested for strength by placing a ruler across the middle of the bridge to hold a bucket suspended from this bar. Weights will be added to the bucket. The last weight that the bridge supports without the bar touching the cardboard in any spot is the weight recorded for the strength of the bridge.

***Then, we will divide this mass by the total number of toothpicks used in order to find the bridges mass per toothpick.